


and how are you? and do you love me?

by banditchika



Category: BanG Dream! (Anime), BanG Dream! Girl's Band Party! (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Love Confessions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-07-01 10:58:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15772746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/banditchika/pseuds/banditchika
Summary: She is in love with Misaki, with a girl like the scent of lingering smoke and the first soft brush of spring; with a girl who couldn’t believe that anyone would love her when it seemed to Kaoru that all the world longed to.





	and how are you? and do you love me?

**Author's Note:**

> alternate title: and they were both bottoms...
> 
> some dialogue and scenarios have been changed for Plot Purposes, but this story is set during the course of the White Day event! thank you so much for the commission, asami!! it's been such an interesting challenge to figure out misaki and kaoru's voices, n i hope i've done this ship justice! ^^/

This is Okusawa Misaki. First-year Hanasakigawa student, fifteen, six months away from sixteen. She has a younger sister and an even younger brother. Her mom’s a nurse; works night shifts every day but Sunday from seven in the evening to five in the morning. Misaki enjoys exercising. She can’t stand cilantro but isn’t picky about anything else. Sometimes she squeezes the felt dolls she makes for her sister, but only when no one’s looking because she’s too old to find them cute.

Misaki had the bright idea to start working part-time when she started high school. More money never hurts, and Hikaru sprouts faster than a weed. Misaki does the shopping for him. All he’s got are her and Aiko’s hand-me-downs and some motheaten shirts from well-meaning family members that Mom uses as kitchen rags. He deserves more than that.

Hence the job. Being a mascot character had seemed easy enough; weird, yeah, but definitely preferable to fighting for shifts at the local fast food restaurant or jockeying for a position at the mall. But then Tsurumaki Kokoro and Matsubara Kanon happened and Misaki’s strange, easy job became full-time weird with no sign of respite—to say nothing of Hagumi and Kaoru. God, especially Kaoru.

It’s kind of amazing.

But she’ll probably never admit it.

 

* * *

 

“Okay,” Misaki sighs and gingerly hands her disks to the nearest Suit. She’s sweating buckets, but it’s not like she can fan herself with her uniform or wipe herself off in front of them. If she’s gonna die of heatstroke, she might as well die polite. “Thanks again for the help.”

“Of course, Okusawa-san.” The lead Suit puts a head over her chest. Her eyes are inscrutable behind her glasses. “We will do everything in our power to assist Kokoro-sama and her friends.”

“Right.” Misaki scratches her head. The thought of having even a little of Kokoro’s considerable influence—the Suits, the money, and who knows what else—is pretty stressful. Like one day Misaki’s going to slip up, say she wants to go swimming, and end up stuck in a floatie in the middle of Kokoro’s surprise private water park with no escape in sight. Seriously. The cruise ship incident was more than enough.

But it’s sorta nice to know that the Suits will be there in their personal ventures too, and all because Kokoro considers them friends. It makes Hello Happy feel less like a trainwreck and more like a family.

Misaki shakes her head. The heat’s making her loopy. She needs to get out of the closet before she thinks something even sappier.

She trudges behind the Suits as they wheel out of the storage room with the turntables and mixers under a tarp. First things first: a cold drink. She’s already practiced the dance steps she has to do for the musical, so all that’s left to do today is—

She slams face first into something solid and warm. Strong hands grip her by the shoulders, steadying her.

“Ah,” a low, familiar voice rumbles, “there you are, Misaki. Have you packed up all your equipment?”

Kaoru’s smile is a flawless ratio of teeth and lips and mirth. Misaki shifts, unaccustomed to the weight of Kaoru’s hands on her. “Kaoru-san. Yeah, I’m all done for the day.”

“How wonderful!” Her smile grows even wider. Misaki has to lean away from her, she’s so bright. “Thank you for your help, and for DJ-ing in Michelle’s place. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

“Oh, no problem.” Kaoru says things like that to so many girls that it’s hard to take her seriously, but she’s always painfully honest about that kind of thing. Even the embarrassing stuff. Especially the embarrassing stuff. “I wish you asked before printing out all those posters, but it’s not that big a deal. I wouldn’t have wanted to disappoint all your admirers.”

Kaoru clears her throat, looking for once abashed. “Ah, I’m sorry for putting you on the spot. But you agreed, and I couldn’t be more grateful,” Kaoru says. She squeezes Misaki’s shoulders with her fine, long-fingered hand. “My little kittens tell me that they find you quite dashing.”

“Uh—me?”

“Of course. To see you composing at a table with such focus…” Kaoru’s eyes are a little faraway; almost dreamy. Just what kind of Misaki is she imagining!? “Ah, how fleeting…! It’s enough to send any maiden’s heart aflutter, don’t you think?”

“... Not really, no?” Misaki’s cheeks are hot. She reaches for her hat on instinct, realizing too late that she doesn’t have it. She settles for brushing her sweat-matted bangs out of her eyes. “I mean, I’m just—that’s whatever. I’m just glad the song came out well.”

“Don’t downplay your efforts, Misaki. Your merits are evident to anyone looking.” Kaoru _finally_ removes her hand from Misaki’s shoulders and sticks one in her pocket. “Are you heading home?”

“I am, yeah. Gotta pack up, then pick up my siblings and go eat dinner.”

“At a family restaurant?”

“Yep. I’m, uh, not a great cook, and Mom’s usually too tired, so there’s not a lot of food at home. If we want something edible, it’ll have to be from a restaurant.” Why is she telling Kaoru all this? It’s not like she’d understand. Her and Kokoro—their type would probably never get it. Misaki shakes her head. “Sorry, that’s not your problem. I should get going now.”

“Of course,” Kaoru says, stepping aside. “Will you let me walk you out to the courtyard?”

No, she wants to say. Misaki’s still sweaty from dance practice and helping the Suits pack up the equipment. Honestly, she just wants to go home before Kaoru notices that she’s grimy, stinky, and unflatteringly flushed. She doesn’t really think about it on a regular day, but right now, in the midst of White Day preparations, it’s hard not to notice just how grubby she must seem next to tall, handsome, put-together Kaoru.

“Fine by me,” is what comes out instead. Misaki doesn’t have time to regret agreeing before Kaoru lights up, and damn—she can’t say no after saying that. She can’t go back on her word after seeing how happy she’s made someone. That’s kinda her whole problem, actually.

“Well then,” Kaoru says, and is it just Misaki’s imagination, or is she standing taller? No, she definitely is; her shoulders are thrown back and her smile is picture perfect. She reminds Misaki of a peacock fanning its tail, but there’s no sign of her ‘little kittens’ anywhere; no one to show off for.

Just her and Misaki, alone in the hallway. And that’s…

“Yeah, let’s get going,” Misaki says. She brushes past Kaoru, praying that her hair can hide her flushed cheeks. Her imagination needs to stop running wild. She has actual important things to do, and everything else is just—such a pain.

Besides, Misaki? Misaki, whose hair sticks to her face and neck in heavy, damp strands; whose shoulders are perpetually hunched; whose ever-present eye bags are like bruises against her sunburnt skin? Please. She can’t catch _any_ girl’s eye looking the way she does, much less Kaoru’s.

Everything in moderation. But futile hopes, even in small doses, will do her more harm than good. Misaki is better off forgetting all about them.

 

* * *

 

The applause still rings in Misaki’s ears after curtain call. Slumped against the gym’s walls with Tomoe, Himari, and Hagumi laughing at her sides—it’s pretty great. Misaki hides a smile behind her hand and watches Hagumi copy one of the show’s more energetic dance moves.

Kaoru bursts into the gym. “Everyone, I come bearing gifts,” she cries. She’s got an armful of roses and cards in her arms. Probably from her… ugh. Little kittens. Misaki slumps against the gymnasium floor. And she was feeling so good too.

A rose is thrust into her face. Misaki barely avoids getting smacked in the face by the embossed card tied to the stem. She glowers at Kaoru, who beams at her with barely restrained joy.

“Please take this,” she says, “as an expression of my heartfelt gratitude.”

“Oh, thanks.” Misaki runs her fingers over the velvety petals, the gilt card.

“You’ve been giving these to all the girls that gave you gifts for Valentine’s, huh?” Tomoe asks, accepting a rose and card with both hands. Oh damn, Misaki should have done that too. It’s just Kaoru, but Misaki should always mind her manners…

“I didn’t get you anything for Valentine’s,” Misaki says, scanning the card. The characters are written in a dramatic, flowing script that she has to squint to begin to parse.

“This isn’t a White Day gift. I wanted to thank you all for helping me with my selfish request.”

“But these messages…” Misaki flicks the card. “They’re personalized? Did you write these just for us?”

“Of course. How would I express my gratitude properly otherwise?” Kaoru lays a hand over her chest. Up close, the strain of the past two weeks is evident; the bags under Kaoru’s eyes won’t rival Misaki’s any time soon, but even a single hair out of place looks strange on Kaoru. Misaki isn’t used to seeing that side of her. With the way their schedules line up and how determined Kaoru is to preserve her image… well, Misaki supposes that there must be many sides of Kaoru that even Hello Happy doesn’t know.

(But Misaki still knows more than the most of Kaoru’s fans. She really shouldn’t feel so pleased about that.)

“I’m only able to shine because everyone’s here for me. I won’t cut corners when thanking them,” Kaoru continues. She’s sparkling. Himari claps wildly and even Tomoe seems impressed.

“You remembered all the individual requests from your fans too, didn’t you?” Tomoe asks. At Kaoru’s nod, Tomoe leans down and whispers, “She’s a bit weird, but she really is a kind person, isn’t she?”

Misaki nods, still piecing together the note on the card. That’s the kind of person Kaoru is. Despite her eccentricities, God—Kaoru’s just a really, genuinely good person. Misaki could never do as she does. Tending to herself, her family, and her few friends takes enough out of her as is. Expanding that circle and still sincerely, honestly caring about the people she invites into it is impossible.

So really… really. Misaki admires Kaoru. It’s hard to be kind in a world like this. It’s hard to care and conduct yourself well when there’s so many eyes on you, so many people expecting things that you might not be able to deliver. But Kaoru manages, somehow, and despite her idiosyncrasies, Misaki can’t help but admire her for it.

“She may have been born to be a prince,” Misaki muses, and traces the characters penned on her card.

_Meet me behind the gym after everyone has gone._

Even now, with all of them exhausted from weeks of practice and waning adrenaline, Kaoru still looks like a prince—like she’s in control. Like she knows what she’s doing. Is it such a surprise that even Misaki wants a bit of that shine?

Kaoru can do so much. All Misaki can do is try and hope things fall her way.

She sighs through her nose and counts down the minutes until the other girls leave her and Kaoru alone.

 

* * *

 

This is Seta Kaoru. Second-year Haneoka student, newly seventeen, only child. She’s been shuffling an increasing number of hobbies into her repertoire for years. Acting first, her truest passion; then fencing, swimming, equestrianism, four different styles of dance, and then the most notable of her recent exploits, guitar.

She was painfully shy in her childhood. There are a handful of people who could tell you that, but if Kaoru had her way, no one would ever realize. She likes the way people look at her now. She likes that people rely on her, respect her, admire her. She wants things to stay that way. Even swans don’t show the way their feet kick beneath the water, churning madly just to keep afloat.

Kaoru takes the station from school and the studio every morning, every night. She brings a new book to read during her commute every week: Nietzsche, Miyazawa, Woolf, one of the Great Bard’s plays. Her parents are often away, but Kaoru doesn’t mind. She comes back to an empty house. Lays down in her bed and closes her eyes for a moment. Then, when the exhaustion has seeped away just enough for her to pull herself up again, she finishes her homework, practices guitar, runs through her scripts one last time, and gets ready to repeat it all again the next day.

It’s a fine life. A good life.

It’s the spring of her lifetime, and Kaoru is in love with Okusawa Misaki.

 

* * *

 

She is lovely today. She is lovely every day, but there’s something special about how the fading sun kisses the gloss of her hair so sweetly, how the last of the cherry blossoms swirl at her feet as though she were Venus emerging from the sea.

Or perhaps there’s nothing special about the day at all. Perhaps it’s Misaki herself who makes things so beautiful, who Kaoru can’t tear her eyes away from.

“So why’d you wanna see me, Kaoru-san?” Misaki shifts on her feet, arms folded across her chest. “You thanked me already…”

“I could thank you for a thousand years and it still wouldn’t be enough,” Kaoru says, and doesn’t miss how Misaki rolls her eyes or the way her mouth hooks up before she fights it back down.

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. What’s this about, then?”

Kaoru doesn’t answer. She sweeps her arm out, drawing Misaki’s eye to one of the few trees dotting Haneoka’s campus. A soft pink blanket is laid out under the grass beneath the tree, the corners held down by rocks and small candle-shaped lights. The lights throw soft orange light across the blanket and yard.

Hanasakigawa, as Kaoru understands, is filled with far more greenery, but this tree is special. Roughly-carved names dot the length of its trunk, joined with crosses or encircled by jagged hearts. Teachers frequently patrol the tree in hopes of catching students carving into the bark with the edges of their rulers or tips of their pencils, but daring or desperate girls brave their scrutiny regardless.

Kaoru thinks them very brave. Love, no matter how impermanent, deserves to be recognized, immortalized, and having brought Misaki here—

Kaoru’s name is on that tree somewhere. Not just once, either. It’s a great honor, a great embarrassment, and a great deal to live up to. She strives with every breath to honor the love etched into each sweep of her name. She can’t return their feelings, but she wants to be brave enough to join the ranks of the girls who’ve admired her so.

“Come sit with me, Misaki. Please.” Kaoru strides to the tree and folds her knees underneath her. Misaki arches a brow but follows, shoes dragging against the grass.

She settles cross-legged on the blanket, leaning forward on her palms to pin her skirt down. Her hair, blacker than a wet crow’s feathers, falls over her eyes as she looks anywhere but at Kaoru.

That’s fine. Kaoru will look enough for the both of them.

The fading sunlight draws shadows over them like veils. The candles’ electric light turns the planes of Misaki’s face into something majestic, something not quite a girl. She looks pensive and tired; always tired. Kaoru wants to hold her. But that’s rather—rather _forward,_ and Misaki has never been tactile, forever shifting awkwardly in Kokoro and Hagumi’s arms and smiling politely whenever Kanon reaches for her hand.

It’s bewildering how someone so kind can be so stiff, but Kaoru thinks she understands. Misaki’s kind heart is a soft thing, prone to bruising. Allowing someone into her space must feel like poising a dagger over her chest.

“Misaki,” Kaoru says, stirring from her reverie. “Did you enjoy the musical?”

“It’s not like I watched it as an audience member,” she sighs. She plucks at the blanket again like it’s the most fascinating thing she’s ever seen. “But yeah, from what I saw? It wasn’t bad. Your fans were really pleased.”

“And you?”

Misaki shrugs. “I guess it was pretty nice to be a part of that.”

“I’m very glad.” Kaoru strokes the shape of a root beneath the blanket and follows its length to Misaki’s restless hands, laying her fingers over Misaki’s. The look she shoots Kaoru is sharp, nearly a warning, but she doesn’t pull away. “The musical would have been nothing without you.”

“Nothing?” Misaki’s eyes fix on the tree. “Come on… I didn’t do much.”

“But you did. You have.” Kaoru squeezes their joined hands. Misaki’s gaze slashes back to her face once more, almost hawkish in its intensity. “This musical is for you too. Do you realize that?”

“Me? I’m not one of your fans, y’know.”

“I know. But the musical is for people I appreciate, and you, Misaki, I appreciate very much. I wouldn’t be able to shine as I do without you in my life.”

Misaki shakes her head, dry, cracked lips pulled into a thin line. Kaoru has a tube of lip balm in her bag. She wishes she were brave enough to offer it.

“Bet you say that to all the girls,” Misaki mutters, and if Kaoru weren’t so aware of her, she wouldn’t have been able to hear at all.

Before Kaoru can comment, Misaki asks, “Is that why you’ve brought me here? Why me and not one of your,” she wrinkles her nose, “little kittens?”

“Because you’re hardly a little kitten, aren’t you?” Kaoru clasps their hands together. Misaki looks like she’s just smelled something rotten.

“Are you going to call me a princess? Because I’d rather be a prince.”

“A prince then,” Kaoru laughs. Misaki frowns at her. She is often frowning, and Kaoru can so rarely think of words that can make her smile. “In any case, you are dear to me. Special to me. I wanted to tell you so.”

“All this for something you could say at practice?” Misaki can’t seem to decide whether she wants to frown at Kaoru or at the ground, each pass of her eyes like a sweep of fire.

“It would be rather bold of me to try this at practice. Not to mention… likely unwanted.” Here she goes. Kaoru licks her lips, and Misaki’s eyes follow the motion. Her cheeks warm. “I… ah…”

All her meticulously-planned words fly out of her head. Her mind is devastatingly blank. Kaoru tries to scrape together some semblance of eloquence, but the words fall like sand through her fingers. See now; this was why she’d chosen and planned for _this_ moment. The matter of her feelings had seemed so simple, coming off the high of the stage and the rush of a perfect performance.

Now, with Misaki’s clammy hands between her own and her expression so sad, so wanting, Kaoru wonders how she could have thought this would be simple at all.

Groping for something, anything that can save her, she says the first thing that comes to mind.

“As the Great Bard wrote, ‘Love is a wonderful, terrible thing.’ Oh, Misaki, I am a victim to its clutches!”

“Um?” Misaki’s mouth falls open. “What?”

Kaoru’s not making sense, even to her own ears. But she can’t stop babbling. She feels like a little girl again, making herself as small as possible so she can hide behind Chisato’s dependable back. “O-or something like that. ‘The course of love never did run true’...?”

Misaki stares at her a moment, blue eyes nearly gray in the shade of the tree. Her calloused hands squeeze Kaoru’s, viselike, before she pulls away with a sigh. “Aah, I don’t get it.” She rises, the lean muscles of her thighs bunching. “Look, um, if you don’t have anything else to say, I need to go. Whatever you planned, I’m sure some other girl would appreciate it more, so...”

She gropes for her bag. “You can text me if you need something else, but I really need to get go and get my siblings ready to eat dinner.”

“Wait! Please wait.” Kaoru dives and snags Misaki’s sleeve. She must look like such a fool, but nothing can be worse than the nearly-withering stare Misaki has pinned her with, as if she were considering shaking Kaoru off and leaving. Kaoru hasn’t been on the other side of that glare since Misaki joined the band, before her feelings made themselves known.

“Please let me try again. That wasn’t what I meant to say. Th-that is…”

She hasn’t been this nervous in ages. Things are so much easier onstage. All she has to do is perform. But this isn’t a performance. With Misaki, she can’t be anything but honest, nothing more or less than herself.

She still isn’t certain that Seta Kaoru is someone Misaki wants to be with, but honor demands she try. How many little kittens have thrown themselves into her path? Kaoru’s more certain now than she’s ever been that the girls she’s rejected are braver than her by far.

Here with Misaki, heart in her hand, Kaoru has never been more vulnerable or more afraid. Misaki could cut her down now and not even realize what she’s done. Misaki could break her. But Kaoru remembers the girls, remembers Misaki’s own tender heart, and tries again.

“I care for you,” she tries. Misaki’s expression is like stone, and to Kaoru’s shame, tears begin to well in her eyes. “I love you. Most ardently.”

Misaki says nothing. Kaoru really might die. Her heart breaks in an entirely mundane, entirely human way. Her only consolation is that Misaki won’t look at her, too busy tracing her finger along the tree’s trunk to watch Kaoru’s face crumple. Foolish girl. Some prince.

When Misaki speaks again, her voice is firm. “No, you don’t. You can’t.”

“And why not?” Kaoru fights to keep her voice even and succeeds, though it’s a pale victory. “Is it really so strange that someone loves you? The strangest thing is why more do not. You’re wonderful, Misaki.”

“Look, I don’t know what you’re going on about or if this is some kind of joke, but I can’t do this. I can’t.” She grabs her bag and rises to her feet. “Don’t bring this up again. Please. Don’t… don’t mess around with me if you don’t mean it.”

Misaki looks like she wants to cry. Kaoru already is. There’s nothing princely about the way the tears streak down her cheeks. No elegance, no poetry; just Kaoru as she once was and might always be, feeling pathetic for crying but utterly unable to stop.

“Please,” Kaoru begs, throwing the shreds of her dignity to the wind. Her heart is broken. Her pride is as dust. This isn’t a performance and she no longer has anything to lose. “P-please don’t say that. I’m trying my best. I’m trying, I swear!”

She can barely see Misaki’s face through her tears, but it’s hard to miss the way her eyes widen, the way her mouth falls open.

Rough, clammy hands grasp her face. “Okay! Okay, okay, I’m sorry, I’m really sorry, just please—please stop crying, please?” Misaki’s voice breaks with panic. Strong arms reel Kaoru in, pulling her flush against Misaki’s front. She is warm and solid, her uniform starchy against Kaoru’s cheek. “Kaoru-san…”

As much as it pains her to see it, Misaki’s distress is almost comforting. Kaoru doesn’t sniffle. She doesn’t choke on a sob. But she does laugh and pull away from Misaki’s brash comfort, running the back of her hand over her eyes. “Aah… please don’t look at me right now. I’m so unseemly. Please.”

“Okay. Alright, sure.” Cloth rustles. “Just, um, let me know when I can turn around?”

“I w-will.”

She composes herself. Most acting warm-ups—regulating your breathing, relaxing your body, centering yourself—are also perfect for calming yourself down after a spate of tears. It’s little wonder that Chisato had thought it a good idea to teach them to Kaoru all those years ago.

“Alright,” she says when her breathing stops hitching. “I’m ready now.”

“O-okay.”

Misaki’s a model of guilt, eyes downcast and lips pressed together as though she is fighting back tears of her own. “You calmed down pretty fast,” she observes, then claps a hand over her mouth. “I mean—”

“It’s alright, I understand.” She brushes a knuckle beneath her eye, catching one last tear. Misaki fumbles in her bag and comes up with a packet of tissues. She wipes the salt from Kaoru’s cheeks so gently, like Kaoru might just erode away if she’s not careful.

Despite herself, Kaoru can’t help but laugh; Misaki really is kind to a fault. Despite her edges and armor, she really is a painfully gentle, warm-hearted girl. Kaoru can’t believe she thought she would protect her when Misaki herself is already a prince in her own right. “You shouldn’t worry about it. I used to cry a great deal. I’m more than familiar with how to stop.”

“I suppose, but... Mnn.” Misaki’s jaw tightens. She tosses the damp tissue in her bag and reaches for Kaoru, circling her wrists in a loose, gentle grip. “Kaoru-san… look, I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have lost my temper like that.”

“It’s alright, Misaki. I’m sorry for showing you such an inelegant side of me.”  

“Don’t really think that’s something you should apologize for,” she says. She raises her arms, bringing Kaoru’s up with her before letting them fall into her lap. “Besides, I was kinda relieved. It’s nice to see that side of you too.”

Kaoru doesn’t get it. “You... liked that I cried?”

“What? No! No, definitely not that.” Misaki jerks away and twists her fingers together; runs her hands through her hair; fidgets with her uniform, looking exactly as miserable as Kaoru had felt. “I meant the honest side. I know you like to be all… princely and stuff. And I know I complain, but I really do like that part of you. Seriously. But sometimes you talk to me like that and I wonder if I know you at all. Who you really are, I mean.”

Her stare could burn holes in the blanket. “I can’t tell if you think of me as another one of your little kittens, or your friend, or… something else.” She slumps against the tree, broad shoulders dropping. “So I got frustrated with you because I thought you were playing with me. I c-care… I care about you a lot, okay? I didn’t know you really, actually...”

Misaki pinches the bridge of her nose.

Her voice is very quiet when she asks, “Do you really feel that way? A-about me?”

“I do.” Kaoru is certain that her feelings are the kind that possessed the Great Bard’s hands when he penned his finest love stories; what moved Woolf to write letter upon longing letter to a woman she couldn’t have. She is in love with Misaki, with a girl like the scent of lingering smoke and the first soft brush of spring; with a girl who can't believe that anyone would love her when it seems to Kaoru that all the world longs to.

“Kaoru-san… Why?” Misaki spreads her arms, a dealer throwing her hand on the table. Her eyes are watery, lips wobbling. “I’m grubby, I’m always tired, I’m negative all the time, and—and I made you _cry_!”

“But you’re kind.” Kaoru dares to brush her fingers against Misaki’s cheek, delighted when she leans into the touch. “You’re gallant. And you work so hard to make others smile. You’d never hurt anyone on purpose, wouldn’t you?”

Kaoru’s fingers trail along Misaki’s jaw, down her collar, coming to rest over that tender heart. Misaki shudders but doesn’t pull away. “You give so much and ask for so little. You try, even when it hurts you, and you think nothing of what you do, even when it’s something truly incredible. _You’re_ incredible, Misaki. Of course I’d love you.”

Misaki shakes her head. “No,” she whispers, eyes very bright and very round. “That’s just...”

“That’s you, Misaki,” Kaoru says, hope strangling in her throat. She shifts closer. “I love you.” Her knees bump against Misaki’s. “Do you feel the same way?” Simple words, not flowery at all; but they’re Kaoru’s and they are honest. “Do you love me too?"

Misaki squeezes her eyes shut. Kaoru’s heart pounds like a prayer: _please, please, please._ A prince doesn't beg, but Kaoru isn't exactly a prince right now. She's just a girl with her heart in her hands, waiting for the person she loves to take it or break it. 

Misaki takes a breath. 

_Please. Please. Please._

Misaki sighs.

_Please. Please. Please._

And wonder of wonders.

Some kind god must be listening; or perhaps Kaoru has finally done the impossible: found the words to make Misaki melt.

Misaki laughs, warm and bright, and it’s as though the sun has shown its face after years behind dark clouds.

“Yeah,” she says, and her smile is shy, crooked, bright. She winds her fingers through Kaoru’s. “I guess I kinda do.”

**Author's Note:**

> if you enjoy my content, please check out my [tumblr](http://banditchika.tumblr.com/) or my [twitter](https://twitter.com/cardteetees) to learn more about my writing!!


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